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State and county leaders are considering making competency mental health treatment for jail inmates more local.

State and county officials are working with attorneys about the possibility of a jail-based treatment program for defendants who are deemed incompetent to help with their case and are in need of treatment.

Those who are determined incompetent — meaning they are not able to help with their own defense and/or understand the charges against them — receive treatment to help restore them to a level of competence so that their case may move forward.

Competency treatment is done at the Human Services Center in Yankton, the South Dakota Department of Social Services said in an email.

The state is "discussing jail-based competency restoration services and a possible pilot program with Minnehaha County," Department of Social Services spokesperson Tia Kafka said in an email.

If the program were to start, it would "target individuals who don’t need inpatient psychiatric care in order to be restored to competency," Kafka said in the email. "We don’t have additional details at this time."

DSS declined to provide an interview about the possible program.

There is no timeline for when the program would be completed. Minnehaha County Jail Warden Jeff Gromer said attorneys are still working out the legality of such a program, which could help streamline the process for defendants found incompetent. Those eligible for the treatment would be decided on a case-by-case basis, he said.

On March 22, a judge ordered the Human Services Center to either make a bed available for Williams or find another treatment provider that can perform competency restoration services.

Williams was found competent Wednesday, and pleaded guilty to simple assault against law enforcement, for which he has been in custody since March 2018, at the same hearing. A sentencing date was not set.

South Dakota law says that when a defendant is found incompetent, the court "shall commit the defendant to the custody of an approved facility."

That facility could the Human Services Center or other facilities approved by the Department of Human Services or Department of Social Services for placement or treatment, according to South Dakota law.

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The South Dakota Human Services Center in Yankton is shown on June 3.(Photo: Joe Ahlquist / Argus Leader)

The Human Services Center did not made attempts to contract with other treatment services to provide competency restoration, according to testimony by Human Services Center administrator Kenneth Cole restated in the judge's order.

The Human Services Center in a response said that the South Dakota Department of Social Services is "in the process of establishing jail-based competency restoration services" in Minnehaha County so that defendants can begin competency restoration treatment "without delay."

Williams wasn't the first inmate to request a quicker bed date. Lois Faye Two Bulls wrote a letter to a judge in 2015 requesting to move up her treatment date, saying the conditions she faced in county jail were becoming “more and more unbearable.”

Two Bulls was charged with manslaughter in 2014 after speeding through a parking lot and killing 43-year-old Angel Stevens. She waited four years for evaluations and treatment until she was deemed fit to help with her case in December 2017. She was sentenced to 10 years of supervised probation and was given credit for the 1,376 days she served in the Minnehaha County Jail and the Human Services Center. She's not allowed to drive and will be required to maintain regular mental health appointments.

In 2015, the Argus Leader published a series of stories on the state's practice of jailing defendants for months without trial because of a backlog of court-ordered mental health exams at the Human Services Center.

Legislation, passed after the investigation, transferred exam funding to counties, and the Human Services Center stopped performing court-ordered evaluations in July 2017. Evaluations can be done in the county. Treatment once a defendant is declared incompetent is still done at Human Services Center or another state-approved facility.

The legislation requires that evaluations be done within 21 days. At the time of the Argus Leader investigation, defendants were waiting an average of eight months for an exam. The average wait time across the state now is about 30 days.

Email reporter Danielle Ferguson at dbferguson@argusleader.com, or follow on Twitter at @DaniFergs.